This year’s banned book week came at an interesting time for the library profession. Last year the Fifth Circuit US Court o Appeals found that there running a public (or any publicly funded) library is an act of government speech. In their decision they said:

"Take a deep breath, everyone. No one is banning (or burning) books. If a disappointed patron can’t find a book in the library, he can order it online, buy it from a bookstore, or borrow it from a friend.”

Which may seem logical on its face. How can a book be banned if you can still get it at your local bookstore (or some hegemonic uber-online-retailer)? This of course assumes you have a bookstore in accessible distance and, of course, you have the money to burn (pun intended).

So, what’s all the fuss, right? WRONG! The Libraries Lead team is eager to talk about the nature, scope, and very real threats of banned books, bookstores, government speech, and the joys of living in a society where we are all assumed to have open-minded friends and that “We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness” (Orwell’s 1984).

This special bonus episode is from a keynote address delivered at the opening of the new ESSECI Public Library in Cuneo, Italy, at the end of September 2026. “From the Care of Bodies to the Care of Minds” explores what libraries can and must become in an age of generative AI, declining trust, and profound changes in how people create knowledge. Dave argues that libraries offer something machines cannot: accountable human relationships grounded in community. He calls on libraries to move beyond repositories of information and become platforms for conversation, cultural heritage, creativity, and collective action.

Libraries have always been more than the sum of their shelves. After hours, when the last patron has gone and the lights go down, something else takes over. Maybe it's a lock-in group shrieking through an escape room in the stacks. Maybe it's a paranormal tour winding past the periodicals. Maybe it's a prom, a wedding, a midnight book release with people in costume lined up around the block. Libraries have been hosting the unexpected for as long as they've existed and some of what lives in their collections and histories is stranger than anything you'd find in the fiction section. In this episode, we embrace the season and explore the wonderfully weird, the surprising, and yes, occasionally spooky, side of library life. Because it turns out that the world's greatest keeper of human knowledge has, over several thousand years, accumulated more than its fair share of things that go shhh in the night.

Every so often the way we make information changes enough that the field built around it must rebuild. It happened after WWII when a flood of scientific data and the digital computer turned librarianship into library and information science. It is happening again. This time the cause is a machine you can talk to. When learning happens inside a conversation, there is no document left to check, and AI literacy runs out of things to grip. Generative AI triggers a major "information shock"—a fundamental disruption on par with the printing press or digital computer that forces fundamental changes in how we create, store, retrieve, use, and evaluate information. Dave makes the case; Beth and Mike push back.

This episode examines the ascent of library science education from the academic periphery to becoming central to the modern university within Information Schools (iSchools). Over the past fifty years, the field has transformed from a niche, single-degree program into broad-based, robust, multi-program iSchool powerhouses with significant research funding and enrollments.

But, iSchools exist within universities, and universities today are facing a "perfect storm" of severe enrollment declines ( the 2026 demographic cliff), mounting fiscal pressures, and a shifting cultural landscape. One “solution” taken by some is to merge and consolidate schools and departments. According to recent 2025–2026 data, nearly 20% of university presidents have engaged in serious merger discussions. This is called, the "Great Consolidation."

In this episode we examine the implications of this consolidation, and whether it is the right move or misguided in relation to the field, universities, and society.

Libraries aspire to be a place where everyone belongs — and in Episode 50, we explore what that commitment looks like in today's world. Far from simply reaffirming tradition, libraries are actively expanding their roles, From welcoming undocumented community members without fear, to opening their doors to neighbors experiencing homelessness, to providing access and safe spaces for student well-being in schools, libraries are fulfilling their function as true public sanctuaries. At the same time, the reversal of federal protected areas policies has put libraries in a new and uncertain position, with staff navigating real questions about how to keep their doors open and welcoming to all.

Library leaders are also navigating the very real tension between serving their most vulnerable patrons and maintaining a safe, comfortable environment where families and community members of all backgrounds feel welcome. We talk policy, we talk heart, and we talk about the librarians and staff who show up every day to make sure no one is turned away.

America's obsession with crime, from Serial to Investigation Discovery marathons, runs deep, and libraries are right there with our patrons, stocking the thrillers and hosting the book clubs.

But in Episode 49, Dave, Beth, and Mike ask a harder question: what lies beneath every cold case, wrongful conviction, and uninvestigated crime? The answer, again and again, is an information failure. Witness statements that never get digitized. Rape kit backlogs numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women who vanish from official databases as easily as they vanish from news coverage. Algorithms trained on biased data that tell police where to patrol and judges who to detain.

From the Golden State Killer's multi-decade run across jurisdictions that weren't sharing data, to the Nancy Guthrie abduction case and the stark disparities it reveals about whose stories get resources, this episode explores how the architecture of information systems shapes who gets justice, and who gets erased.

NOTE: This episode discusses true crime cases and includes discussions of violent crime, sexual assault missing persons cases, and the systematic failures that leave victims and families without justice.

Some say it’s theft, some call Generative AI a collaborator, many see the underpinnings of AI as simply remixing what is. Yet, the ideas of theft, remixing, and collaboration are all firmly founded in the arts. From pop art to hip hop, the idea of creation through imitation and derivation has a long tradition. Renaissance painters learned and made a living from copying their masters. Song covers like Luke Comb’s Fast Car and, yes, even The Beatles “Twist and Shout” have become more well known than the originals.

In this episode we look at AI filling our playlists, our literary magazines, and gulp, even our library shelves. Does an embrace of AI alienate institutions like libraries from their communities, or is it an embrace of a new creative medium? How do you draw the line between AI slop and AI assist?